Winning the Class 5A state championship this season will likely entail stopping — or at least slowing down — St. Thomas Academy star senior running back Savion Hart and the Cadets’ potent rushing attack. Owatonna couldn’t do it Saturday in Woodbury.

Hart ran for five scores — pushing his total for the year to 34 — as the Cadets downed the Huskies 46-28 in a Class 5A quarterfinal bout.

St. Thomas Academy wide receiver Luke Dobbs (11) catches a pass over Owatonna defensive back Owen Beyer in the second half of a Class 5A quarterfinal game in the State Football Tournament at Woodbury High School in Woodbury on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. St. Thomas Academy won 46-28. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

Cadets coach Travis Walch believes slowing his team’s running game will be a tall task for any opponents generally unfamiliar with the Cadets’ offense.

“I think when you ask a lot of coaches, ‘Why is it tough to defend STA?’ They’ll say, ‘My gosh, they’ve run 22 formations this year,’ ” Walch said in a phone intervew. “I’m so proud of our coaching staff when you talk about the offensive side. When it comes down to it, we don’t do a lot scheme-wise, but we do a lot with formations and motions. And if you’re not lined up in the right gap because it’s a formation you’ve never seen, that’s all we need to give Savion that crease on top of a really good o-line and some tight ends. It just makes it really, really tough.”

“I’ve been on the defensive side of the ball, I would love to see a team that only runs four formations. But you just don’t know what we’re going to come out in each week, and I think that’s the real challenge.”

Owatonna certainly didn’t have any answers Saturday, as Hart ran for two touchdowns in the game’s first seven minutes to stake St. Thomas Academy to a 15-0 advantage. Owatonna was never dead, as the Huskies (8-3) moved the ball offensively. Jacob Ginskey threw three touchdown passes, including two to Nolan Ginskey.

But St. Thomas Academy’s defense made enough plays to constantly keep Owatonna at an arm’s length. The Cadets forced at least four turnovers, while committing none. That’s the thought for St. Thomas Academy’s defense this season: Find a way. While the offense returned nearly everyone from last season, the defense essentially started from scratch, from personnel to scheme.

“It’s apples and oranges when it comes to why is our offense where it’s at and why is our defense where it’s at,” said Walch, who’s in his first season at the helm. “And don’t get me wrong, we work every week to get finer and better at all the little things.”

But, given the offense’s potency, an opportunistic defense is still a very complimentary unit.

St. Thomas Academy players celebrate with their fans after defeating Owatonna 46-28 in a Class 5A quarterfinal game in the State Football Tournament at Woodbury High School in Woodbury on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

“If we can do that, we can beat anyone. We don’t care who it is,” Walch said. “I’m sure Owatonna is sick right now knowing, ‘Minus, turnovers, we’ve got a shot.’ But it’s part of the game. And we take great pride and we spend a lot of time on tackle turnover throughout the week.”

St. Thomas Academy (9-2) will meet Alexandria (11-0) in the state semifinals at 2 p.m. Friday at U.S. Bank Stadium. Alexandria beat Rogers 38-14 in its quarterfinal Saturday.

Next week will mark the Cadets’ first trip to downtown Minneapolis since 2019. St. Thomas Academy fell in the state quarters each of the past two seasons, and there was no 2020 state tournament because of COVID-19. So next week will mark the first appearance for these Cadets on the state’s grandest stage.

“When you come to St. Thomas Academy in ninth grade, and you choose to come here, the thought is you’re going to end up at the Bank. And not only because of COVID, but also because of not being able to win the last two years, yeah, we had kids on the sideline crying,” Walch said. “I think about all the people that don’t get this, yeah, they’re big-time excited, and they need to be. Because this is why they choose St. Thomas Academy. … This is the mission of the school. We want to be great academically. We’re going to prep you for college. But, make no mistake about it, we want to win championships.”

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In June, Wes Spearman appeared before a St. Paul deputy legislative hearing officer to plead his case for a liquor license. The longstanding Grand Avenue restaurant and bar he operates, Billy’s on Grand, has been serving alcohol through a license officially still held by the previous business owner, which is problematic for two reasons.

First, the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections has sought to revoke the establishment’s existing license following gunshots in and outside the bar, among other documented incidents triggering escalating fines and municipal penalties. And second, the corporate entity that holds Billy’s on Grand’s existing liquor and business licenses may soon no longer exist.

“I recently had some contact from the current owner, the RJMP Group I purchased the business from two and a half years ago,” said Spearman, in a recent phone interview. “He stated he’s dissolving the company. I don’t know what that will do to our business. There has to be some corporation (acting as license holder).”

Since his June hearing, which drew public testimony from about a dozen residents for and against his proposal, Spearman said he’s heard radio silence. The city has yet to inform him what the hearing officer’s recommendation to the city council will be, or when the city council will consider his license application.

“It’s been frustrating at best,” said Spearman, late last month. “To say we’re heading into the month of November, and to not have a response to our request is unacceptable. It’s been very discriminatory to my business.”

A rough debut

Billy’s on Grand’s current licenses were issued around June 2020 to the RJMP Group, which is owned by Randall Johnson and Matthew Prendergast. RJMP, in turn, entered into a management agreement around April 2021 with Spearman’s outfit, the DWD Group, which took over operation of Billy’s on May 28, 2021.

The debut was far from smooth. Residents and city officials became alarmed after 132 documented police calls for service over the course of a year.

Last December, an administrative law judge supportive of the city’s proposed fines said that while not all the police calls could be attributed definitively to the restaurant and bar, averages of one police call every three days were too compelling to ignore. Billy’s was fined $500 by the city in February 2022 and $1,000 in February of this year.

As a legal appeal hearing before the judge was being scheduled last year, St. Paul police investigated a call for disorderly conduct shortly before 1 a.m. on May 21, 2022, but reported being barred from entering the establishment. Based on that incident and the restaurant’s previous history, the city Department of Safety and Inspections later recommended full revocation of Billy’s liquor, patio and entertainment licenses.

The city council has yet to vote on that recommendation. On April 5, the city council voted 6-0 to allow the DWD Group’s application for a new liquor license to move forward before DSI, even as revocation of the existing license hovered as a possibility overhead.

On Oct. 23, a DSI spokesperson said the matter was still before the city’s legislative hearing office, which had yet to complete its report.

A rebrand to the Gather Eatery and Bar?

Acknowledging “hiccups” since his group reopened the bar and restaurant in 2021, Spearman approached community groups such as the Summit Hill Association last May and presented a plan to partially remodel and then rebrand Billy’s as the Gather Eatery and Bar.

The concept called for “elevated” bar food, creative cocktails, small bites, live music and theme nights such as Karaoke, Latin and country, and ultimately a reservation-only “speakeasy”-style side room and family gathering space.

In an effort to diminish its reputation for hosting an afterhours club-like atmosphere, the bar currently closes at midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends, rather than the 2 a.m. closing time allowed by its licenses.

“Disappointed doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about the way I have been treated during this process,” said Spearman, in an email Tuesday. “I have done everything in my power to work with the city and residents to make sure I’m being a good neighbor. I’ve proposed a re-brand for my business so that it is more in line with what the neighborhood wants, I close earlier than what I have to in order to appease those who live in the area. I qualified for a grant to help me with the re-brand and I’m not able to obtain it to begin work because I have no license.”

Waiting for a decision

Some neighbors were instantly skeptical of the Gather Eatery proposal, given the history of gun violence in the area. Spearman said he would put $225,000 toward the rebrand, a figure that struck neighboring residents as too low for a top-to-bottom concept change and partial remodel.

Spearman said that given the hold-up with the city in determining if he qualifies for a liquor license, even that sum has been out of reach.

“Without a license, my bank is not willing to take a chance on a business that we don’t know will have a liquor license moving forward,” he said.

“I was in heavy contact with DSI at the time prior to making this proposal,” he continued. “We had told our customer base that we were closing (for the remodel). We had tagged our tables. And then all of a sudden (the deputy legislative hearing officer) was saying, ‘We don’t know how long this decision is going to take.’ We were thinking 30 days. We’re well outside of 90 days.”

On Oct. 23, a legislative aide to St. Paul City Council member Rebecca Noecker confirmed in an email that the matter still rested with the legislative hearing officer, who had yet to complete her report to the city council.

“Her recommendations are forthcoming and will be heard by council when they’re complete,” she wrote.

Monica Haas, executive director of the Summit Hill Association, in an email that the delay in a decision “negatively impacts our community for neighbors, the property owners, the business itself and the city of St. Paul.”

“It’s unprecedented that any business in St. Paul has had to wait so long for a decision, and we hope that no other business owners will have to go through this inefficient process,” she said.

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When Ryne Sandberg signed a then-record four-year, $28.4 million contract extension with the Chicago Cubs during spring training in 1992, baseball executives were apoplectic.

Sandberg’s average annual salary of $7.1 million far exceeded the $5.8 million average New York Mets slugger Bobby Bonilla received only a few months earlier.

What were the Cubs thinking?

Minnesota Twins general manager Andy MacPhail was among those livid over the toppling of baseball’s salary structure.

“My 3-year-old son could have made that deal (with Sandberg),” MacPhail said. “To jump from 5.8 (million) to 7.1! That was absolutely stupid a year ahead of free agency. That’s stupidity and timidity.

“Sandberg sets an artificial deadline and gets away with it! It’s a terrible deal. We’re going to spend ourselves into oblivion. I don’t blame the players. It’s the owners’ fault. We keep giving it to them.”

Two years later, MacPhail left his job with the Twins with two years remaining on his deal to become president of the Cubs. He didn’t seem to mind the Cubs owner, Tribune Co., inflating his worth for a better job.

MacPhail’s journey from finger-wagging executive of a small-market team to “take-the-money-and-run” executive for a big-market team comes to mind after hearing baseball people wailing over Craig Counsell’s shocking five-year, $40 million deal to leave the Milwaukee Brewers and manage the Cubs.

The Athletic quoted one unnamed former manager who called the Cubs’ decision to fire a manager under contract, David Ross, for a higher-priced replacement as the “managerial Hunger Games,” referring to the dystopian novel about a battle of survival. The irony is The Athletic began by poaching reporters from newspapers and websites with much higher salaries, a sort of “journalistic Hunger Games.”

Anyway, the report concluded that baseball people were “conflicted” by the move. It quoted another anonymous former manager as saying “it just felt wrong” and spelled the end of the “brotherhood” of managing, as if the 30 major-league managers were all in this together.

I’m not sure what planet any of these anonymous baseball people are living on, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with Cubs President Jed Hoyer electing to hire what Counsell, who most believe is one of the top managers in the game, to replace Ross, who had a year remaining on his contact and oversaw an epic September collapse to lose a wild-card spot.

Either they weren’t paying attention to the Cubs downfall or they’re jealous that someone set a new market for managerial pay.

Few managers play out their contracts and elect for free agency, preferring the security of an extension. That includes Ross, who signed a three-year extension before the 2022 season with an option for 2025.

Counsell decided to bet on himself, knowing if the Brewers missed the postseason for a second consecutive year it could backfire. He won.

The idea that Counsell should’ve deferred to Ross’ status and told the Cubs he wasn’t interested in a job that was already filled is also backward thinking. He owed Ross nothing.

Baseball people like to tell us they’re all part of a family — until it comes down to money. Then it’s like any other business. Players profess they love a city and its fans, then opt out in hopes of a bigger deal, as former Cubs pitcher Marcus Stroman just did.

It’s all part of the game. If someone offered you a prestigious job for more money, would you reject it out of hand because you’d be taking someone’s position?

The reaction in Wisconsin to Counsell’s departure also has been disturbing. Someone defaced a sign on a baseball field named after Counsell, and Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, who threatened to move last summer if funding for stadium improvements wasn’t forthcoming, whined that “Craig has lost us, and he’s lost our community also.”

Such nonsense. Counsell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he would remain part of the community where he grew up and continues to live.

“And that’s going to continue, hopefully, because it has nothing to do with baseball, that part of it,” he said. “I’m looking forward to being part of a new community and hopefully impact our community well too. But as I went through (the decision), it just became clear that I needed a new challenge.”

The proximity of Chicago was also important to Counsell for family reasons. He was going to be paid wherever he landed, so you have to think being close to home was almost as important as the record contract. He still has cheese in his DNA.

As for Hoyer, he deserves credit for making a difficult decision that he thought was in the best interest of the organization, as he did during the massive summer sell-off in 2021. Javier Báez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo will always be beloved in Chicago, but few fans wish they were still here.

It was also nice to hear Hoyer concede “we left wins on the table.” Though Ross deserved credit for the team’s revival after being 10 games under .500 in June, he also deserved some of the blame for the collapse. How much of it was Ross’ fault is debatable, but it’s hard to argue that his team didn’t look defeated during the final road trip to Atlanta and Milwaukee that sealed its fate.

Whether this decision turns out well for Hoyer and Counsell is anyone’s guess. The Cubs still need talent upgrades after an 83-win season and could lose their best hitter in Cody Bellinger. Counsell will be reminded before his next postseason game that he never has managed a team to the World Series

But it signaled a new era for the Cubs — a chance for Hoyer to separate himself from Theo Epstein’s long shadow in Chicago and for Counsell to live up to his reputation as one of the best in the game.

If this really is the Hunger Games, we can’t wait for them to begin.

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